[tex-live] language, lang, la (was: testing TL'08)

[Robin Fairbairns]

Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 6:31 PM, Heiko Oberdiek wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 08:31:22PM -0500, Karl Berry wrote:
> >
> > * Language names are a mess in texmf-doc, examples:

they're a mess on ctan, too.

> >  texmf-doc/doc/german/
> >    german: lshort-german
> >    de:     pdf-forms-tutorial-de, voss-de
> >    ge:     FAQ-ge, texlive-ge
> >    <none>: remaining directories
> >  * I don't understand "ge". Either use "german" or the
> >    two letter ISO country code "de".

i've long wondered about "ge".

> >    The first two letters of the language name must not be used,
> >    this would lead to clashes. For instance, what would be "sl":
> >    "slovak" or "slovenian".
> 
> Definitely Slovak.

except that it's the iso code for slovenian; for slovak the iso code is
"sk".

> But if you want to support language-specific searches (like LANG=sl),
> you probably need a list of language names (pairs of language_code,
> language_name). Then, if someone wants "de" for example, you know that
> you need to look into subfolder of texmf-doc/doc/german

i would favour using the iso codes -- creating a new set would add
further confusion (of the sort introduced by "ge=>german" -- "ge" isn't
an iso code).

however, changing the lot now sounds to me like a big project; sorting
out ctan, alone, will take a good long time.

robin